Book 2 : CANADA, cont’d
Note:
The page numbers may seem a bit mixed up in a couple of places;
this
is because Eulene has tried to keep the subject matter together as best she
could.
She
comments “There seemed to be a lot of rambling in this section”.
In 1907 I bought 3 sows and a boar, all young, and paid 7 cents per lb. live weight. Although I had fairly good broods, the price dropped I remember taking 17 pigs 3 months old to Sheho[1] and all I could get for them was $2.00 each. They cost me more. [15] However, I could not take them home. I had no feed for them, so they had to go. I had no better success with the rest. I sold a sow and 6 pigs for $25.00, and those I butchered only brought 5 cents per lb. Since then I have paid 60 cents a pound for bacon, but not for my own eating.
I reckon I lost $100.00 on pigs this first year. For one thing I had to buy my feed instead of growing it and sometimes I could not buy it but, after this experience, I had my own flour and feed, bran and wheat grits, by taking wheat to mill and having it on hand when we required. Also, I never bought more than 2 pigs at a time, one to breed and one to fatten and kill for the household.
Between whiles I got a little work on the railway. I used to get up at 4:00 a.m., feed pigs, get my own breakfast, and walk 3 miles to the starting point by 7:00 a.m., getting home at night at 7:00 p.m., again feeding pigs and myself. This was before wife and family came out.
[16] My first cow I bought of brother Sam - Shorthorn cow and calf about $30.00. During the time I had her, she brought me 12 calves in 12 years and was a good average producer of milk. She eventually got into the waterhole one winter and was so exhausted I had to kill her and even then I sold 2 quarters of her at 5 cents per lb. But she could not bear the sight of skirts and often, when milking her, I had to warn off wife and children. She would kick the pail over at the least fright and there would be 2 gallons of milk wasted.
However, she was a good cow. The calf I had with her I kept until it weighed over 1,000 lbs. live weight; the hind quarters weighed 200 lbs. each, and I never fed it grain, only hay and grass. I found butchering them paid me best if I could spare the time which happened only in winter. [17] If I had to dispose of them in the summer I had to sell them to a dealer who shipped them to Winnipeg.
This breeding business took me away too often from cultivation work and at all sorts of times, so determined to buy a bull, which I did - a Holstein, of Mr. Cross. He broke away from Leonard and myself twice before we got him home but, the third time, we succeeded. He was a terror. Two of the neighbors threatened to shoot him so, after one season, I had to sell him. I went out to get him one day and he sent me flying. One swing of his great head knocked me yards away, so had to wait until he came home with the cows. Then I got him and sold him. 2 weeks after, the newspapers reported that a bull of his description had trampled a man to death. I asked the dealer about it and he said it was the [18] bull I sold to him. I never had another - only those I had bred. He left a good strain behind him.
In time, I had increased my herd to between 20 and 30, and milked 10 cows night and morning. That meant work - hard work, early and late and seven days a week.
About the third year I was on the homestead I bought a team of small oxen. We could drive them in the democrat[2] like a pair of ponies. They would trot along good, but were not heavy for breaking, so I got hold of 3 big oxen. They did all my breaking but were slow on the road if I wanted to go anywhere. And so I obtained 3 heavy oxen who did the breaking and disking and, in fact, all the hauling until I got horses. However, although oxen are slow, they are wonderful workers and little trouble. All summer [20] they feed and water themselves. Their harness is simple and easily repaired.
On one occasion I was going to get a load of wood from a pile I had made, so started the oxen off without guidance. They took me to the pile, pulling up beside it. I was puzzled at the time to account for such sagacity, but later it dawned on me that they had followed the nearest trail to work. But how cute. Why go miles to work, or wander about aimlessly, while there is a job nearby waiting to be done? One morning I could not find them. I searched all over the half section. It took me about 2 hours and had to turn homeward without them. On nearing home I espied a white face in a bush and there they had been all the while. A great hindrance, but amusing.
On one occasion I had been to town for goods and had lost my way on coming home. I had come up against a fence, but could not find an entrance. As I felt I could not search about with a load, [21] I unhitched the team and let them go while I followed the fence until I found my way. I went back next morning and they were not far away from where I had left them, so harnessed up and in daylight got home.
[18] I found my quarter section[3] was not a very good one. Eustace took the quarter section next to mine and, as he was away at work during the summer, I had plenty to do, breaking 15 acres on my own and about 30 on his. Then Freeland's was to let and there was about 15 to 20 acres [19] broken on that. I had enough. I see my mistake now. I had to pay 3 lots of taxes whereas I should have been able to have all the arable land I needed on the half section and so reduce my taxes. But we live and learn. So I used to have about 50 acres in crop, and summer-fallowed[4] (4) 20 acres each year. That was 20 acres of wheat, 20 acres of oats and 10 acres of barley.
About implements, a walking plow and a fanning mill were about the first implements I bought. At that time almost anyone could get implements on time, and so I got a mower and rake. Then followed a gang plow and binder and, consequently, needed the heavier oxen.
[21] Now about implements, it was fairly easy to get implements on credit or, as the phrase went, "on time," by one down payment about one-quarter of the purchase price, sign a contract, and you could have the machine. That is the way I bought my line of implements after the fanning mill which I bought with oats which I sold to the implement dealer. While in his office completing the deal, I noticed he had quite a big fire. It was a fearfully cold day. I also noticed there was no sheet iron in front of the stove, and so was not surprised to hear that the whole place had burnt down that same night after [22] the owner had locked up and gone home for the night. It was a great loss to the owner, but he thanked me more than once for taking the fanning mill away, saving it from the fire. But the oats I sold him were burned and thousands of dollars of implements and grain and feed were either a partial or total loss.
Next was a mower and rakes; then a drill, a disk, wagon, and a binder. Also a sulky plow, and then a gang plow. On account of shortage of capital, I bought a low lift gang for which I never forgave myself, as it is so much harder to handle than a high lift, especially at the end of a furrow when turning round or when trying to get clear of roots; when the plow got stuck in them. On account of rough ground, the wear on implements was hard and I soon wore out my mower blades and had to go to the blacksmith to get a new set put in. He was too busy and advised me to do it myself. [23] So, had to attempt it. Like many other things, you learn by doing. I got it done all right.
Until I came to Canada, I had not killed an animal, only few snakes such as adders, slow worms, efts[5], (5) etc., or perhaps a rabbit or fowl. The first summer I was on the quarter I went in for pigs. I bought 3 sows and a boar. All 3 sows bred and I sold one and her litter of piglets for about $30.00. Then I took 16 pigs 3 months old to Sheho and had to take $2.00 apiece for them. The bottom had dropped out of the pig market, so had to take what I could get. One sow I killed and could only get 5 cents a pound, or nothing. The boar I had to castrate before killed, but he died under the operation. It was my first attempt as I had to buy all the feed that season. I had a hard time and, in the end, lost over $100.00. After that experience I bought only 2 pigs per season, one to breed and one to fatten and kill for food. A pig is the quickest and best way to turn money over profitably if you grow the feed. [24] After that experience of running about for food, I always tried to get a grist of wheat to the mill and so secure flour, white and brown, grits, shorts and bran. I could often point to the table and say that all except tea and sugar was raised on the farm.
We had, of course, fowls, hens and roosters, chickens and eggs. Also used to raise about $20.00 worth of turkeys but we had losses with them. The turkey mothers would take the poults through the dewy grass and that often killed them if the weather was cold. Plymouth Rock hens make good turkey mothers. Then turkeys took to roosting in the trees and that was pretty cold after freeze-up. Then they grew down under their feathers instead of flesh on their bones. They need management. Sometimes a turkey hen would set herself and nest in an exposed place and a coyote would come along and eat eggs and turkey hen.
I have spoken of rabbits earlier but, on moonlight nights, have seen dozens of them in the yard, so took to setting traps [25] fastened to a log and used to catch all the rabbits we needed without shooting. Also, we were prohibited from shooting partridges and prairie chicken so I used to set traps on the corn stalks and catch them that way without shooting.
I used to catch muskrats and sometimes it was profitable, although a very cold job going round to the traps twice a day. I once bagged a wolf. He was dead when I found him but his ears brought me $2.00 and the pelt something more. $2.00 was the bounty for killing. I once spent 2 or 3 hours skinning a horse that had died. It was frozen and quite a job to get hide off a frozen carcass. I was nearly frozen myself by the time I had done and then only got 75 cents for the hide. The tanner and the shoemaker got more out of it than I, under more propitious circumstances.
Now, about cattle. I find, on looking back, I have repeated myself about the pigs and also there is a discrepancy between the two accounts as to 16 or 17 pigs [26] to Sheho. Well, the explanation is that I took 17, but one escaped and so only sold 16.
Once again, I repeat, about cattle. I have told heretofore about the first cow I bought and so will not repeat. The dehorning had to be done if we got the best shipping price. It was a ghastly job for, no sooner were the horns off than the blood spurted out all over the place, and ourselves particularly. On the morrow, the cattle all stood bunched together like a lot of sheep. They seemed to know they had lost their means of defense.
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